When You Can't Take Anymore
by semajy
Summary: He waited too long for them to change. It was time for him to help them along. What happens when you just can't take anymore? Modern AU Please review
1. And He Arrives

Modern AU

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Rurouni Kenshin. All other characters are fictional, and any similarities between them and characters of other works of fiction are entirely coincidental. This is very loosely based upon the movie, _The Negotiator._ I do not claim that there is any truth in this work of fiction.

**Chapter 1**

Finally he was here. It had taken him the better part of two years to come up with this plan. Today, he would finally put his plan to the test. There was no turning back after this. He knew he most likely would fail. But he would have to try. For years he had watched the corruption grow and grow. He had hoped that he was wrong again. He hoped that he had made another mistaken assumption. But this time he was right. They weren't changing, not enough of them. Even the ones in America, the land with mountains of gold, were as bad, if not worse. More and more were abusing their power. The righteous ones were too few; they were vastly outnumbered by the dishonest. However, if all went as he hoped, today would change that. An overdue lesson had to be learned. He was going to be the one to teach it. Himura Kenshin, A.K.A. the Battousai, walked into the Internal Affairs Bureau of the NYPD.

* * *

Johnathan Simtih sighed. Being a captain almost made him want to be a sergeant again. Almost. It wasn't that he didn't like being in the NYPD; on the contrary, he was honored to be apart of New York's finest. But lately, ever since he got promoted and started mingling with his former superiors, he's discovered how many of said superiors were unprofessional. Now, he had never seen any evidence of corruption; he would be appalled if he ever did, but it was the little things. A sneaked-in doughnut here. An extra extra-long coffee break there. And general laziness all around. Right now, he was trying to explain something to a particularly annoying person in Internal Affairs.

"No, sir. I never threatened to shoot Officer Smith in…that place."

"Captain Simitih, you must be aware that as your position as Captain, you must set an example to your subordinates," the annoying inspector stated robotically.

"Yes, sir, I understand, sir," John said, barely repressing a sigh. He couldn't believe that he had driven nearly halfway across town and walked up 17 flights of stairs to put up with this crap. Why did the elevators choose to break down this day anyway? And all of them at almost the exact same time? The cables couldn't have been under the same amount of stress at the same time. "But with all due respect, Officer Smith was irritated and spiteful. You must understand how the younger officers are reckless and hotheaded at times."

"I can understand that, Captain, but we cannot just let this go uninvestigated. You may have to stay here for evaluation."

John tore his eyes away from the fellow sufferer who had just made the long trip up the stairs. "Please, sir! You must understand. I would never do that; I can swear. If you just contact one of my peers in my building…"

"I'm sorry, Captain, but we cannot pull a competent agent away from their work."

What a load of bull-crap. _Agent_ he says. This guy is way too technical. Before John could open his angry mouth, however, a commotion fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, arose.

"Excuse me," someone said. Strangely, his voice seemed to echo even thought it wasn't very loud.

John and about the other fifty people looked over. John could see that this was the same guy who had made the walk up the stairs just a few seconds ago. He was uncommonly short. His plain gray trench coat would've fit an average twelve-year-old. He was Asian. He had strikingly red hair. And he had the strangest pair of golden eyes. But what stood out the most was not his height, nationality, hair color, or even eye color, but the livid scar on his cheek. It was a big red slash. It looked old, yet freshly healed. It was hard to describe.

"Excuse me," the man said again, politely. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid that I will have to take everybody here hostage."

John thought he had misheard the guy. Looking around in disbelief, he saw some of the other people looking dumbfounded too. What in the world was this guy talking about. He was small, and he had just walked into one of the most idiotic places for a hostage situation: a big room full of big cops with big guns.

"What the hell did you say?" a guy, a deputy inspector, asked, almost laughing.

"You will all be taken hostage." And then the Asian man did something that made everyone take him much more seriously. From under his coat he drew a long Japanese sword. One look at it told that it was sharp.

Almost immediately, guns were drawn, John's included.

"Just- just calm down there," the same deputy inspector said much more seriously. "Put. The. Sword. Down."

"I am not mentally ill, and I will not put my Katana down," the guy with the sword said again in those calm tones. "Please do not try to resist. It may force me to hurt you."

John was getting mixed messages again. He could understand how the deputy inspector might think the guy was crazy. He had threatened people trained to use the guns that were pointed himself when he only had a sword. Admittedly, it was a rather dangerous-looking sword (meaning very sharp) but still, he could not beat guns.

John joined in with the increasing shouting.

"Put your weapon now!"

They were getting frantic. The subject had the advantage here. With so many people shoved into the same room, there was a very good chance that if someone tried to shoot the guy and missed, one of their own would be hit. Apparently, the swordsmen knew this.

Calmly walking into the center of the room, with his sword hanging loosely at his side, he said, "I must be honest with you. You cannot hope to beat me. If you do not withdraw, I will be forced to disarm you."

This constituted as a very real threat. A real enough threat that one of the officers on the upper level walkway decided to open fire. Suddenly, the guy was gone and there was a hole a few inches behind his disappeared feet.

What the heck was this? What happened? John followed his fellow colleagues' lead and looked around confusedly.

And then came the thud.

A/N: So what do you guys think? I probably got a lot of the facts wrong, I know, but just ignore that part. Should I go on? And sorry if some of you guys were waiting for a new chapter of "The Best Test". I've kinda hit a brainstorming problem. I'll try to come up with a new chapter as soon as I can. In the meantime, please read and review this story.


	2. And the Fighting begins

Modern AU.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I do not claim to own any of the things I said that I did not own in Chapter 1.

**Chapter 2**

Kenshin was on the walkway of the second floor. His amber eyes followed the movements of the police. Almost as one they trained their guns onto the man who had just fallen onto the floor.

The man that Kenshin had just kicked over the railing.

Kenshin kicked the slashed remains of the said man's gun down after their owner. The other officers seemed to need some kind of prompt to tear their eyes away from their fallen comrade.

"Over here!" Kenshin called to them. He raised his katana to cover his face and bent his knees.

"He's up there!"

"Shoot him!"

Kenshin dashed to his left as baseball-sized holes appeared in the wall accompanied by loud "_bangs!"_. He jumped when he was a few feet before the walkway turned sharply to the left. He quickly turned so he was horizontally parallel to the ground and kicked out with his right foot to propel him diagonally to the left. Immediately after that maneuver, he used his right foot to connect with the wall about to collide with his face and jettison himself off the upper floor and back onto the first.

He landed behind a few of the ones in the back, bending his legs to absorb some of the impact. Acting quickly, he stood up and brought the hilt of his sword around his body to whip the policeman directly in front of him in the back of the skull. Before that one hit the ground, he used his momentum to keep turning and used the back of his fist to hit the next one hard on the ear and the pressure point directly behind it.

By now, the surprise factor of his acrobatic maneuver had faded. The duration of the surprise was somewhat lengthened due to the afterimage. Now however, they were too crowded to shoot safely. Resorting to the nightsticks, most of them advanced. The ones who did not have a nightstick went to get one.

Kenshin was mentally disappointed. He had wished that this wouldn't have to come to him completely thrashing the bureau. Obviously he was wrong. He sank into the seigan stance and waited for the fight to come to him.

The first poor victim was a very large man. Large as in extremely muscular and intimidating looking. He was surprisingly fast for his size, but still, he would be no match in the face of Kenshin and his Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. His style was all about speed.

As the man brought the stick down, Kenshin sidestepped to the left and brought the butt of his hilt upon the bottom of the man's skull. He was instantly knocked out. Kenshin then ducked under another baton and twirled around, using his tremendous leg strength to kick out. Finishing the spin he used his free hand to whip off his bulky, laden-with-lead trench coat which had served its purpose and concealed his sword. He threw the coat at a surprised officer who stumbled with its considerable weight. Kenshin leaped over and kicked the officer in the chest, knocking him and a few of his colleagues out of the fight. He was now met with the bulk of the police force. Their numbers worked against them because half of the batons were blocked by another. Kenshin really didn't need the extra advantage. He slashed out and cut two of the batons in half. Then, he roundhouse kicked the owners of the batons. He reversed his blade and shoved the blunt side into another oncoming person. He then dashed into the crowd, smashing people with his shoulder.

He was vaguely aware that a few of them were women. That was one of the reasons why he had wished that this would not erupt into a conflict. As he went in and out disarming people, he thought of what **she** would think. What would she think if he saw what he was doing?

What would **they **think?

But now was not the time to dwell upon that. He had already spent two long years dwelling. This was a time for action.

Kenshin had just finished about half of his opponents. The remaining half was joined by the others who didn't have a nightstick originally. The newcomers were dumbfounded by the number of bodies on the floor.

"Quickly," someone in the back, probably a high-ranking officer, whispered to someone. "Call for back-up. Tell them we have a serious situation."

"That will not be necessary," Kenshin told them. "I doubt they would arrive in time to join you. Please just surrender. I will not hurt you and I will let you call whomever you wish."

"What do you want?" someone spoke out.

Kenshin didn't answer immediately. Then, "I will tell you later. For now, please just surrender."

He could see they were scared of him. Their eyes said it in volumes. Kenshin didn't want it to be like this. But this was the only way. All other ways weren't working. It was time to bend the law a bit. He had just hoped he wouldn't be forced to break it. But that didn't matter. There was no turning back now.

One of them was whispering again. He seemed to be giving orders.

"This guy's dangerous. We don't know what his motives are. We're better off not making him angry. Let's just go along with his terms, for now."

Kenshin could tell they weren't all happy with his statements. Their Ki was flaring with anger and dissent. But the guy must have been a Bureau Chief or higher. And Kenshin could see that he had intimidated all of them. Incapacitating over twenty trained police officers in less than five minutes usually had an adverse effect on his safety rating, no matter how girlish he looked.

"Okay we will surrender ourselves. Just calm yourself down now."

If Kenshin wasn't himself, he would've laughed at them. They were trying that mind game again. They were trying to create the illusion that they were still in control. That worked less and less nowadays. Reverse psychology would get them nowhere.

"Thank you. And now, if you will, you're weapons?" Kenshin asked, pointing at a table.

Some of the younger officers seemed to be upset at having to part with their guns. One look from the chief guy, however, made them skulk over there and put their weapons down.

"Now," Kenshin said. "Where's Commissioner Heidnn?"

The conscious officers looked around. They seemed reluctant to part with the whereabouts of one of the highest ranking people of the NYPD.

"I know he's here," Kenshin said. That was true. He had seen the man walking around just ten or so minutes ago. Right before he had cut the wires to the elevators. No backup would be coming through there anytime soon. "Please, I will not hurt him. I've just decided that I will not be taking all of you hostage. However, if none of you will point him out, I will be forced to keep everybody here. Would that be better?"

Apparently, that wasn't better. All fingers went to an office with blacked out windows in the back.

Kenshin walked toward them. They all scattered in fear. He walked over to the door. Inside this room was someone who would insure that he would be taken seriously. Kenshin reached for the metal door knob. He grabbed it. He twisted it.

It was locked. Kenshin sighed. This proved it. This commissioner was a coward. He sent his subordinates to fight while he cowered in his metal fortress. No matter.

Kenshin performed "Metal-Slash" and cut the solid steel door in two. He had long since perfected his strength and technique so that steel would no longer be too hard to cut. As the two halves fell away, Kenshin felt something come into disturb the air in front of him.

A very, very fast something. Just in time, Kenshin raised his sword so that the bullet hit the tsuba, or handguard. As expected, he slid back about half a foot, and the tsuba broke, but it had served its function. Kenshin jumped to one of the side walls inside the office and then kicked off to confuse his opponent. As he passed Commissioner Heidnn, he stuck the blade of his katana out and sliced the handgun so that the muzzle was detached. Now left holding a useless hunk of metal, the Commissioner surrendered out of cowardice or wisdom. Those two qualities were strangely difficult to distinguish for some people.

Now calmly back on the ground, Kenshin brought his molten amber eyes upon the slightly overweight and aging Commissioner.

"Thank you for the warm welcome, Commissioner."

* * *

A/N: As always, please review. 


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